F1 Spanish GP: Hamilton pips Verstappen to take 100th pole by 0.036s
Red Bull looked to hold the edge over Mercedes after Verstappen ended up half a second clear of the field 🎐in Q2, but Hamilton pulled out another special qualifying lap to pip his title rival to pole by just 0.036s and become F1’s first pole centurion.
Hamilton produc💖ed a 1m16.741s on his first run in Q3 and that lap proved to be good enough to land his second pole of the season with none of the front-runners able to im𝐆prove on their final efforts.
Valtteri Bottas will start fr🧜om third on the ꦜgrid after he ended up 0.132s down on his Mercedes teammate.
Behind the leading teams, Charles Leclerc clai🧜med ‘best of the rest’ for Ferrari in fourth with a lap that was over 0.7s adrift of Ha𝔉milton’s benchmark.
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon turned in another standout qualifying display as he finished a brilliant fifth, a🌞head of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardꩲo.
Sergio Pereꦿz could only qualify a disappointing eighth in the second Red Bull after sp꧑inning on his first lap of Q3.
Lando Norris and F🤪ernando Alonso completed the rest of the top-10 for McLaren and Alꩵpine.
In an incredibly🧔 tight qualifying, 0.008s was all that separated Lance Stroll from a place in the top-10 shootout, as the Aston Martin driver finished 11th ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly.
Sebastia༺n Vettel recorded his joint-best qualifying result for Aston Martin in 13th, a few tenths clear of Antonio Giovinazzi who was ꦚthe highest-placed Alfa Romeo in 14th.
George Russell was 15th-fastest on his fourth Q2 appearance of the seas💧on for Williams.
A small error on his final run resulted in Yuki Tsunoda suffering a surprise elimination inꦕ Q1 as the AlphaTauri driver missed out on a spot in Q2 by just 0.007s.
He was joined in the bottom five by Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkone☂n, who recorded his worst qualifying result in Sp﷽ain since 2003 and Haas rookie Mick Schumacher, who outpaced Nicholas Latifi’s Williams by a tenth to take 18th.
In th✱e second Haas, Nikita Mazepin once again found himself anchored to the bottom of the qualifying timesheets, almost 0.7s down on his teammate.
Click here for full qualifying results for the 2021 F1 Spanish GP.
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